Columbus' population keeps rising

Columbus: Still growing, still No. 15. New census estimates say the city reached 822,553 residents in 2013, a gain of more than 12,000 people in just one year.

Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch

Columbus: Still growing, still No. 15.

New census estimates say the city reached 822,553 residents in 2013, a gain of more than 12,000 people in just one year.

That makes Columbus the 15th-fastest-growing city in the country and the only Midwestern city to show significant growth from 2012 to 2013. Most of the other fast-growing cities - such as Dallas, Denver, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle and Austin, Texas - are in the South and West.

Columbus still ranks as the 15th-largest city in the country, just barely behind San Francisco in population.

"The city has never declined in population. Never. I've got back to 1830, when we were at 2,435," said Bill LaFayette, the owner of Regionomics, a Columbus economic-analysis and consulting company. "The fact that Columbus is growing and has grown for 170, 180 years ... that implies that Columbus is a place where people want to live."

Meanwhile, the estimates show Cleveland has shrunk by nearly 2 percent since 2010; Cincinnati grew by just a fraction of a percent. While Dayton has grown by about 1 percent since 2010, no other large Ohio city comes close to Columbus' growth of 4 percent during that time.

"I think it's a testament to the job creators here and to the people here, the civic groups. Together we've created the best city for jobs and opportunities for young people. We've made a lot of good decisions that have allowed us to outpace other cities in the Midwest," said Dan Williamson, spokesman for Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman.

But the overall Columbus metro area is still the third-largest in Ohio. The 2013 population estimates for metro areas show that Columbus ranks No. 32 nationally, slightly smaller than the Cincinnati and Cleveland metro areas.

Columbus grew the most in sheer numbers in central Ohio. But other villages and cities also are booming. The village of Hanover in Licking County has had the fastest growth by percentage in all of Ohio, having added 148 people in four years, a nearly 17 percent change. It grew the fastest over a single year.

"We've had a couple of areas annex in, and as they've annexed in, there have been new developments," said Chad Waters, the mayor of Hanover since January. "On my street alone, there's been seven or eight new houses. I'm sure that's part of the reason. In the whole development, there have been 12 to 14 new homes built."

New and renovated school buildings in the Licking Valley district have made the village attractive, Waters said.

Places well-known to be growing speedily - New Albany, Hilliard, Powell and several villages in Delaware County - keep getting bigger. New Albany saw a 14 percent boost between 2010 and 2013.

Many other Columbus suburbs are looking good: Pickerington, Dublin and Canal Winchester have gained residents.

Columbus' greatest advantage over other Midwestern cities is that it's not landlocked, LaFayette said. Other big cities - Cleveland, for example - are entirely surrounded by their suburbs. But Columbus started a program of annexation in the mid-20th century that sucked up would-be suburbs such as Clintonville as neighborhoods. And now, there are plenty of unincorporated bits of the county that, in theory, also could fuel growth, LaFayette said.

"If you've got an unhealthy central city, the central city could be imploding and everybody would be fleeing out to the suburbs," LaFayette said. "The reason why you're seeing all the growth in both the city and the suburbs is that people are coming into the region as a whole."

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

@jsmithrichards

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